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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!tekbspa!optilink!cramer
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: misc.kids,comp.edu,sci.med,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: U.S. Far Behind In Health Care, Education : Panel Finds
Message-ID: <1303@optilink.UUCP>
Date: 3 May 89 17:03:57 GMT
References: <1843@ccnysci.UUCP#
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
Lines: 68

In article <1843@ccnysci.UUCP#, patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) writes:
# 
# Ported to UseNET from UNITEX Network
#                       201-795-0733
#           via Rutgers FidoGATEway
# 
# 
# *U.S. FAR BEHIND IN HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION, PANEL FINDS 
# 
# Although Americans spend 50% more on health care, as a percentage of their
# economy, than any of the 22 principal industrialized countries, the United
# States ranks 20th in infant mortality and in the bottom third with respect to 

That the infant mortality statistics are comparing apples and oranges
has been long known.  Doesn't anyone ever bother to check these things?

# life expectancy at birth. This was one of the disturbing conclusions of a 
# bipartisan report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the first in 
# nine years to be approved by all committee members. But the committee singled 
# out education as ``perhaps the most prominent area where our nation's 
# shortcomings threaten to impose enormous long-term costs,'' noting that 
# ``approximately 13% of 17-year-old Americans cannot read, write, or count'' 
# and that many are members of a ``widening underclass'' of the homeless and the
# very poor who live outside of the mainstream. ``The United States spends more 
# per student than other industrialized nations,'' according to the report, 
# ``but it is still falling behind. . . in promoting literacy, job skills, and
# educational achievement. . . ,'' with a dropout rate for blacks of 40% and

Does this suggest to you that MORE money is needed?  Or a better 
educational system?  If we doubled the spending, would we also
double the illiteracy rate?  California schools have been IMPROVING
since funding declined in the late 1970s.  Money isn't the answer --
it may even be the problem.

# more than 55% for Hispanic students. The decline in college enrollment, 
# especially among minorities, was described as another cause for concern. A
# contributing factor, the committee indicated, may be the finding that while 
# family income rose 6.4% in the 1980s, the cost of public colleges rose 32% and
# of private institutions, 51%, at the same time that government grants to
# students declined. The result was a 17% increase in student loans since the 
# 1970s. ``Increased public outlays for education should be viewed as a 
# necessary and vital investment,'' the report said. Finally, in describing a 

Absolutely.  If students can't justify borrowing money to pay for their
education, why should the rest of us?

# sharp increase in poverty, especially among the young, in the past decade, the
# committee said that ``the puzzle is that poverty is still so much higher than 
# in the l970s even though unemployment is significantly lower.'' ``A most

The word is LAZINESS.

# urgent concern,'' the committee concluded, ``is the insulation of the current 
# generation of underclass children from the dispiriting effects of their 
# environment.''  THE NEW YORK TIMES April 19, 1989 p.A16.
# (Compiled from Newspapers and Medical Journals for IMTS's Healthweek In 
# Review.)
# 
# Patt Haring 

As the noted social reformer Jacob Riis observed at the turn of the
century, "Some people bring their slums with them."

-- 
Clayton E. Cramer                   {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
Governments that don't trust most people with weapons, deserve no trust.
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